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Greetings!
Hi, I am Hunter Allen and your coach for the next eight weeks. I built this plan using all of the same
power training principles and coaching philosophies that I use with my personal clients. I have spent
years coaching riders at every level and have worked with thousands of clients in over 15 countries. I
have developed software (TrainingPeaks WKO+), written books on training with power, and taught
over 500 coaches the secrets of power training and data analysis. Along the way, I have learned many
things about success in cycling. I have learned that you can produce more watts by blending science,
data analysis, and a power meter. Combining those secrets with my own personal coaching
philosophies can raise your wattage output even more. Follow this guide with a clear conviction,
continual focus, and dogged determination, and I know you will become faster, stronger, and more
powerful.
Prepare to succeed!
Hunter Allen
is
still
known
today.
Introduction
Welcome to your training plan designed to improve your functional threshold power, enhance your
endurance, and prepare you for those weekend races, group rides, and even gran fondos. This plan
will be challenging yet realistic. It is built to give you just the right amount of work when you can
handle it, along with rest so that you can adapt and improve. Make sure you have a solid foundation
of training before you embark on this plan. Rest weeks come every fourth week, but feel free to take
a rest week sooner if you need to. Keep in mind that it is ideal to complete the workouts in the order
planned, but that it is OK to move them around.
SPECIAL THANKS to Dr. Andy Coggan for generously allowing us to incorporate some of his articles and tables.
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Name
Avg.
Power
Avg. HR
Perceived
Exertion
Description
Active Recovery
<55%
<68
<2
"Easy spinning" or "light pedal pressure", i.e., very low level exercise, too low in and of itself to induce significant physiological
adaptations. Minimal sensation of leg effort/fatigue. Requires no concentration to maintain pace, and continuous conversation
possible. Typically used for active recovery after strenuous training days (or races), between interval efforts, or for socializing.
Endurance
56-75%
69-83%
2-3
"All day" pace, or classic long slow distance (LSD) training. Sensation of leg effort/fatigue generally low, but may rise
periodically to higher levels (e.g., when climbing). Concentration generally required to maintain effort only at highest end of
range and/or during longer training sessions. Breathing is more regular than at level 1, but continuous conversation still
possible. Frequent (daily) training sessions of moderate duration (e.g., 2 h) at level 2 possible (provided dietary carbohydrate
intake is adequate), but complete recovery from very long workouts may take more than 24 hrs.
Tempo
76-90%
84-94%
3-4
Typical intensity of fartlek workout, 'spirited' group ride, or briskly moving paceline. More frequent/greater sensation of leg
effort/fatigue than at level 2. Requires concentration to maintain alone, especially at upper end of range, to prevent effort
from falling back to level 2. Breathing deeper and more rhythmic than level 2, such that any conversation must be somewhat
halting, but not as difficult as at level 4. Recovery from level 3 training sessions more difficult than after level 2 workouts, but
consecutive days of level 3 training still possible if duration is not excessive and dietary carbohydrate intake is adequate.
Lactate
Threshold
91-105%
95-105%(may
not be
achieved
during initial
phases of
effort(s))
4-5
Just below to just above TT effort, taking into account duration, current fitness, environmental conditions, etc. Essentially
continuous sensation of moderate or even greater leg effort/fatigue. Continuous conversation difficult at best, due to
depth/frequency of breathing. Effort sufficiently high that sustained exercise at this level is mentally very taxing - therefore
typically performed in training as multiple 'repeats', 'modules', or 'blocks' of 10-30 min duration. Consecutive days of training at
level 4 possible, but such workouts generally only performed when sufficiently rested/recovered from prior training so as to be
able to maintain intensity.
VO2 Max
106-120%
>106%
6-7
Typical intensity of longer (3-8 min) intervals intended to increase VO2max. Strong to severe sensations of leg effort/fatigue,
such that completion of more than 30-40 min total training time is difficult at best. Conversation not possible due to often
'ragged' breathing. Should generally be attempted only when adequately recovered from prior training - consecutive days of
level 5 work not necessarily desirable even if possible.
Anaerobic
Capacity
>121%
N/A
>7
Short (30 s to 3 min), high intensity intervals designed to increase anaerobic capacity. Heart rate generally not useful as guide
to intensity due to non-steady-state nature of effort. Severe sensation of leg effort/fatigue, and conversation impossible.
Consecutive days of extended level 6 training usually not attempted.
Neuromuscular
Power
N/A
N/A
(Maximal)
Very short, very high intensity efforts (e.g., jumps, standing starts, short sprints) that generally place greater stress on
musculoskeletal rather than metabolic systems. Power useful as guide, but only in reference to prior similar efforts, not TT
pace.
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APPENDIX
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approach works even better for identifying an individual's spontaneously-achieved maximal heart rate - thus reducing or even eliminating the need
for formal testing!) Of course, this method works best if the time period being examined includes some high intensity training and/or racing, which
serves to make the distinction between sub-threshold and supra-threshold efforts more distinct. Also, sometimes the drop-off in time spent above
threshold power is more apparent when the width of each power "bin" is reduced from the default of 20 W to a smaller value, e.g., 5 or 10 W.
TrainingPeaks WKO+ has been specifically designed to allow you to customize graphs, to make such analyses possible.
Another way of estimating your threshold power without performing any formal testing is to simply evaluate the steady power that you can routinely
produce in training during longer hard efforts, e.g., intervals or repeats aimed at raising LT, or during longer climbs. In TrainingPeaks WKO+, perhaps
the easiest way of doing this is to add a horizontal grid line to a "stacked" graph of an appropriately-chosen workout (or race), and looking for places
where your power is quasi-constant for some minutes at a time. You can then adjust the gridline up or down as needed to hone in on the best
estimate of your threshold power.
Perhaps an even more precise way of determining your threshold power, yet one which still doesn't require any formal testing, is to examine your
normalized power during hard ~1 hour mass start races. Since TrainingPeaks WKO+ automatically calculates normalized power even if you haven't
yet entered a value for your threshold power, using the program to first analyze several race files may be the quickest way to deriving a good
estimate of your threshold power.
Since by definition the best measure of performance is performance itself, the most direct estimate of your sustainable (threshold) power will be
obtained by simply doing a ~1 hour TT. By examining the horizontal graph of the data from such a TT in TrainingPeaks WKO+ (perhaps with a little
smoothing applied), you will be able to quickly tell whether your effort was well-paced, or if perhaps you started out too hard and then later faded,
resulting in the average power somewhat underestimating your true threshold power.
Finally, those who are more mathematically inclined may wish to perform formal testing to determine their "critical power" as described in the
scientific literature. Briefly, this approach consists of plotting the total work performed (in joules) during a series of relatively short (i.e., between 3
and perhaps 30 min), all-out efforts against their duration (in seconds), then fitting a straight line to the data points. The slope of this line is critical
power, which corresponds quite closely with functional threshold power determined using any of the previously-described methods.
Since one goal of any training program is to increase power at threshold, the value you have entered into TrainingPeaks WKO+ should be periodically
reassessed to be certain it is still accurate. (In particular, an intensity factor of more than 1.05 - meaning that normalized power is more than 5%
greater than threshold power - during a ~1 hour mass start race is often evidence that threshold power is greater than the value entered into the
program.) How often threshold power will change significantly will depend in part on an individual's training history and habits - for example,
someone who is just beginning in and/or returning to cycling may see large and rapid changes in their threshold power, whereas an experienced
rider who has been training for many years and/or an athlete who maintains a high level of conditioning year round will probably experience much
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less variation. In general, however, assessing threshold power a few times per year (e.g., near the start of training as a baseline, partway through the
pre-competition period to track improvement, and during the season to determine peak fitness achieved) is probably sufficient.
ZONES:
AR: Active Recovery - Level 1. An embarrassingly slow pace. When you go out for a recovery ride, it should really be slow and all about
recovery. If you go above the upper limit of wattage for this range, you are riding too hard. It is important to do Active Recovery rides because
they help to flush out your system of built-up waste products, keep your body in rhythm or riding, and maintain suppleness in your muscles.
END: Endurance - Level 2. This is the level you ride at to build a base of endurance and enhance your aerobic fitness. Over time, training in
this range will lead to the development of a stronger heart muscle, increase mitochondrial levels in the cells, develop more capillarization in
muscles, and result in an overall increase in stamina.
TEMP: Tempo (or fartlek) Level 3. From Swedish, meaning speed play; workouts performed at an intensity that is up tempo from what
a rider normally trains at when riding at a comfortable level.
SST: Sweet Spot - A small area of intensity characterized by 88-93 percent of ones FTP.
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FTP: Functional Threshold Power - Level 4. The exercise intensity at which the release of lactate into the blood first begins to exceed its rate
of removal, such that blood lactate levels begin to rise. From the perspective of most athletes and coaches, LT is a relatively low intensity,
approximately corresponding to the transition between Levels 2 and 3.
VO2max - Level 5. The maximal rate of whole-body oxygen uptake that can be achieved during exercise. VO2max is primarily limited by the
ability of the cardiovascular system to deliver O2-carrying blood to exercising muscle; hence, VO2max is considered the best measure of a
persons cardiovascular fitness and sets the upper limit to aerobic power production.
AC: Anaerobic Capacity - Level 6. The overall quantity of work (not the rate of doing such work, which is power) that you can perform by
relying on anaerobic metabolism. Usually trained by performing short (e.g., 30-second to 3-minute), very high-intensity intervals.
NP: Neuromuscular Power - Level 7. These exercises are super-short, high-intensity efforts usually lasting less than 10 seconds each. They
place a larger load on the musculoskeletal system than on the metabolic systems. You want to perform these workouts when you are the
most fresh during the week, as the intensity of the workout is very high and you will need to be highly energized for them.
CODES:
WU: Warm Up
MS: Main Set
CD: Cool Down
AR: Active Recovery
END: Endurance
SST: Sweet Spot
FTP: Functional Threshold Power
AC: Anaerobic Capacity
NP: Neuromuscular Power
FTP: Functional Threshold Power
RPE: Rate of Perceived Exertion
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